Antonio Gramsci's theory of
hegemony is of particular salience to the exploration of racial representations
in the media because of its focus on culture and ideology. Unlike Marxist theories
of domination, Gramsci relegates economic determinants to the background and brings
to the fore the role of intellectuals in the process. The fact that television
and cinema are central to popular culture is crucial because Gramsci says particular
attention should be given to 'everyday' routine structures and 'common sense'
values in trying to locate mechanisms of domination (Gitlin, 1994:517). Many of
the clearly racist images of past television and cinema that are now fading from
western screens can, in hindsight, be easily explained in hegemonic terms - particularly
in relation to colonialism and white supremacy. The use of Gramsci's notion of
hegemony does not expire here, however; it can be used to identify both elements
of the old racist stereotypes and new, but destructive, representations of racial
minorities in the current media of a seemingly liberal society. Thus, it is unsurprising
that racism, though perhaps more covertly, still pervades our society.

In order to see how hegemonic
ideals of white supremacy hide themselves in current media, it is first necessary
to illustrate the racist stereotypes which evolved in the media of a less liberal
society. Hall outlines three base images of the 'grammar of race' employed in
'old movies'. The first is the slave figure which could take the form of
either the 'dependable, loving… devoted "Mammy" with the rolling eyes, or the
faithful fieldhand… attached and devoted to "his" master' (Hall, 1995:21). The
underlying message of such images is clear: the slave is someone who is willing
to serve their master; their devotion allows a white audience to displace any
guilt about their history of colonialism and slavery. The consequence of such
messages relates to Gramsci's idea of 'spontaneous consent' (Strinati, 1995:165)
or 'consensual control', whereby individuals '"voluntarily" assimilate the
world-view or hegemony of the dominant group' (Ransome, 1992:150). Thus the practice
of slavery has been made acceptable and therefore goes unquestioned; the destructive
potential of such images is evident - especially when you consider that the slave
figure is prominent in the classic film Gone With the Wind (Hall, 1995:21).

Although loving, the slave
is simultaneously depicted as unpredictable and capable of 'turning nasty', taking
us to the second of Hall's base images - the native (ibid:21). Their primitive
nature means they are cheating, cunning, savage and barbarian. In movies, we expect
them 'to appear at any moment out of the darkness to decapitate the beautiful
heroine, kidnap the children … And against them is always counterposed the isolated
white figure, alone "out there", confronting his Destiny' (ibid:21). The primitivism
of black people demonstrates their suitability to their servile positions; the
fear of their unpredictability provides justification for maintaining control
over them, while the image of the civilised white man 'confronting his Destiny'
makes the exercise of this control not only acceptable, but also respectable.

The last of Hall's variants
is that of the clown or entertainer, implying an 'innate' humour
in the black man (ibid:22). Interestingly, the distinction is never made as to
whether we are laughing with or at the clown; overt racism is rare in the media
rather, says Hall, it is 'inferential' (ibid:20). Tony Freeth (producer, director
and active member of the Campaign Against Racism in the Media, CARM) adeptly puts
this concept into the context of his experience of the BBC: 'It all takes place
in an atmosphere of smiling, middle-class gentility, an air of righteous indignation
if confronted with charges of racism. No one in TV shouts racist abuse at black
people… No one in TV physically assaults black people, they simply feed us on
a diet of "Blacks are the problem"' (Freeth, 1985:26-7). This, of course, is a
more recent instance of inferential racism, but the implication is the same -
that racism is inferred and reinforced in 'the routine structures of everyday
thought' (Gitlin, 1994:517) that Gramsci says we should focus on.

The image of 'Sambo', introduced
in 1795, is one of the most enduring and pervasive representations of black people
in the history of the media. In this character we can see manifestations of all
three of Hall's base images; Rhodes recalls how he was the 'ignorant darkie whose
life revolved around song and dance', perpetuating 'the myth that blacks were
happy with their slave status' (1995:35). A similar process of normalising black
subjugation can be seen in more recent times in 'black'
sitcoms; Gitlin argues the emergence of black comedies (as opposed to a serious
black drama) reflect an acknowledgement of a rising black middle-class in a non-threatening
way to white audiences (1994:524). Using comedy perpetuates the myth of the black
clown - a recent example is Will Smith's character in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

When considering the representation
of race throughout media history, it is important to understand that what underlies
the concept of black inferiority is western resistance to decolonization and immigration
- Britain has been referred to as 'the last colony in the British Empire' (Freeth,
1985:27). Pierterse notes that 'stereotypes are… reasserted precisely when existing
hierarchies are being challenged' (1995:26). Of particular interest is Pierterse's
observation of the deliberate nature of the likening of blacks to savages: 'What
is striking is how consistent the colonizer's cultural politics are, regardless
of geography or ethnicity. Like Africans and blacks, the Irish have been referred
to as "savages" and likened to "apes"' (1995:25). The rationale, then, for subjugation
is political and social, rather than the actual belief that the savage characteristics
are true or innate. Along similar lines Rhodes notes how the stereotype attached
to any one race shifts to coincide with political and social mood. Prior to the
American Civil War, slaves were depicted as benign and happy with their position;
however, during the Reconstruction, when there were pressure on resources, this
image was replaced by 'the black brute whose sole aim was raping white women'
(1995:36). This idea developed in the early twentieth century, creating hyper-sexualised
black stereotypes, representing white 'irrational fears of miscegenation and black
liberation, and were employed liberally in early motion pictures' (ibid:37).

Rhodes also asserts that
the history of the media as a social institution is an important part of examining
the construction of racial representations. The 'struggle between the transmission
of racist ideology and dogma, and the efforts of oppressed groups to claim control
over their own image , is part of the legacy of the American mass media … Yet
this story has received minimal attention in a historiography that has focused
on the celebration of technological achievement and financial success' (1995:34).
The failure to recognise the white hegemony over media production plays a central
role in continuing oppressive representations, in spite of an industry that has
distinctly labelled itself as liberal in recent times.

To identify how current
television and cinema continue disseminating oppressive racial images, first it
is necessary to briefly look to the recent changes that have occurred in the portrayal
of racial minorities. Ross details the development of British television's 'multicultural'
agenda, which evolved during the late 1970s. Black communities and organisations
such as CARM began to express their dissatisfaction with 'public service' broadcasting,
objecting to poor representation and a lack of access to the means of media production.
What followed was the establishment of the London Minorities Unit (by London Weekend
Television), the African Caribbean Programmes Unit and the Asian Programmes Unit
(the BBC, both of which were replaced by the Multicultural Programmes Department
in 1992) . British audiences saw multicultural 'magazine' programmes such as the
BBC's Ebony andthe LMU's Skin (1996:120-125). Then
there was the all important launch of the commissioning Channel 4 with its minority
interest remit, providing hope for media practitioners out side the 'usual mould
of white, middle-class male' (ibid:126).

Meanwhile
in America, the early 1970s saw Hollywood developing a liberal conscience; the
industry appears to have responded to the black liberal movement in two central
ways. First is the production of historical anti-racism films; Ferguson notes
how films such as Cry Freedom (1987), Malcolm X (1992) and Schindler's
List (1993) all focus on the issue of race with a 'didactic' as well as 'entertainment'
purpose. Second
is the development of the 'blaxploitation' genre; characters such as 'Shaft',
'Black Caesar' and the numerous accounts of the black revolutionist Angela Davis
(such as Foxy Brown, 1974) showed black individuals as the central protagonists
and in control, in contrast to the marginal roles they were accustomed to in other
Hollywood movies. The genre has endured, spawning a 'neo-blaxploitation' (Robinson,
1998:1) in which we could include films such as Bad Boys, Pulp Fiction,
and White Men Can't Jump.

Despite
these apparent positive developments in Britain and America, the white hegemonic
hold over the television and film industries appears to have merely created different,
but equally harmful, racial representations and to have repackaged the old stereotypes
into forms more acceptable in a 'liberalist' society. A prominent problem is that
the media industry is still dominated by white practitioners (though more black
people are starting to get behind the camera). Producers and directors may consider
themselves to be liberal individuals in trying to bring 'race issues' to the screen,
or for avoiding the traditional stereotypes, but largely they rely on the racial
stereotypes that they have assimilated as white people living in a racist society
(Freeth, 1985:30). Freeth examines programmes about 'race problems' and finds
that colonial attitudes seem to dominate the whole production process: 'When the
safari hunters from the BBC or TV companies drive into Brixton or Brent they've
already decided what they want to say. Out come the cameras and the anxious directors,
looking over their shoulders for trouble; out come the long zoom lenses to capture
the people but not to get too close… There are the long telephoto shots of young
blacks in the street… There are the pans across inner city decay, and the shots
of rubbish in the lifts. I sometimes wonder why they go out at all - they could
just as well use the out-takes from last time' (1985:24). Freeth's metaphor of
television companies as safari hunters clearly illustrates the persisting conception
of black people as primitive; for a white audience who (like the producers) have
little other contact with black people, these are powerful and destructive images
which only confirm the stereotypes rather than portray 'reality'.

This reliance on preconceived
ideas about racial minorities can be seen as a form of elitism in which 'liberal'
media practitioners see themselves as intellectually superior to the people the
programme is about or for. These attitudes can be identified also - and perhaps
with greater consequence - at the highest levels of media institutions. When Farrukh
Dhondy (one-time commissioning editor for multicultural programmes at Channel
4) was asked how he, as an Asian man, addressed the needs of the Afro-Caribbean
community, he replied: 'Just through familiarity with what the Afro-Caribbean
community wants, needs and does… I do not attend any committees to advise me on
it because my brains are better than any group of advisors I could gather' (1993:38).
Such attitudes have tended to lead to presumptions that black people want to know
about policing practices and Asian people about immigration law. Paul Gilroy (1983)
argues that this distances minority groups even further from mainstream society.

Such presumptions could
be attributed to ignorance, however there is still evidence of racist attitudes
in media institutions. When trying to make a programme about white racism for
the BBC, Freeth recalls how he and his producer we told: ' "There is a terrible
prejudice between West Indians and Asians" (so it's not really a white problem
at all!); "It's a human problem" (nothing to do with history, politics or economic,
or anything like that!); and that "Many black people imagine prejudice when it
doesn't really exist" (so racism's not a problem at all, just a figment of black
people's imagination!)' (1985:26).

This attitude of locating
the problem within the black community itself can be seen in the context of some
additional aspects of Gramsci's theory of hegemony. One of these aspects relates
to his concept of 'spontaneous consent'; it is the idea that hegemony works because
it is based on the granting of superficial 'concessions' (Strinati, 1995:167).
This involves the dominant group making 'compromises' that are (or appear as)
favourable to the dominated group, but that which actually do nothing to disrupt
the hegemony of the dominators. Gramsci employs a military metaphor to illustrate
the process: 'In war it would sometimes appear that a fierce artillery attack
seemed to have destroyed the enemy's entire defensive system, whereas in fact
it had only destroyed the outer perimeter: and at the moment of their advance
and attack the assailants would find themselves confronted by a line of defence
which was still effective' (Gramsci, 1971:235). In the context outlined by Freeth,
a concession can be seen to be made to black communities by the hegemonic media
by bringing issues of race to the screen under the banner of 'multicultural programming'.
However, this is a superficial compromise because the media address the issue
in such a way as to maintain black subjugation.

Gitlin notes how in the
1950s hegemony operated through the exclusion of minority groups, but that
in an era of liberalism it had to shift its operation to one of 'domestication'
(1994:530); in the above case, hegemonic forces located race problems within the
minority community itself, rather than within black-white relations. This dynamic
nature of hegemony relates to another aspect of Gramsci's theory which is that
hegemony is not a fixed set of ideas. Instead, it is a 'shifting set of ideas
by means of which dominant groups strive to secure the consent of subordinate
groups to their leadership, rather than as a consistent and functional ideology
working in the interests of a ruling class by indoctrinating subordinate groups'
(Strinati, 1995:170-171). Thus, by 'keeping up with the times' (i.e. the shift
to more liberal attitudes) white hegemony is maintained.

These processes of making
superficial concessions and reformulating depictions of race to maintain hegemony
are evident in other contemporary changes in television and cinema which purport
to improve minority representation. British 'multicultural' programming has been
criticised along these lines; programmes aimed at racial minorities have tended
to presume that the lives of these groups revolve around their racial identity
and the problems it incurs. Programmes such as the LMU's Skin are, as a
result, preoccupied with black-white conflict. A consequence of this is that racial
minorities are then only recognised in relation to the white majority, thus further
marginalising these groups (Ross, 1996:121-122). In fact, the very existence of
separate 'ethnic' programmes can be seen to expound the problem; Chris Dunkley
has described minority programmes as a 'benign fascism' that is capable of producing
a 'cultural apartheid' (cited in Broadcast, December 2, 1982, and in Ross,
1996:122).

Minority programming has
also been described as a form of 'tokenism'; Ross cites Trix Worrell (1992) who
argues that the existence of multicultural programme departments 'lets everyone
else off the hook of having to deal with black Britons and perpetuates the thinking
that as long as there is one of something - one black sitcom, one black comedy
show - then sufficient progress has been made' (Ross, 1996:144). Further, multicultural
programming can form a 'ghetto trap' for 'black' programmes (ibid:144). It is
an innovation based on prejudice, as Mike Phillips argues: 'When I watch Inspector
Morse I don't think of it as not belonging to me and there is no reason why
a white person shouldn't feel the same about our programmes' (1992:27). The 'superficial
concession' made in this context is the media provision for racial minorities;
however, this programming is labelled as being for minorities so that even
if positive representations are being circulated within them they simply 'preach
to the converted'.

Even if such programming
did manage to reach 'outside' audiences, there is the problem that attempts by
white liberalists to create more favourable images of racial minorities tends
to lead to sympathetic portrayals rather than positive ones. Rhodes notes the
paternalism of the nineteenth century abolitionist press which cast slaves as
childlike and dependent (1995:35); this is patronising and presents minorities
as intellectually inferior. It is still evident in modern representations: young
blacks are regularly described as 'searching for identity' - you would be unlikely
to hear the same said of white youths (Freeth, 1985:29). Deliberate attempts at
presenting positive black images tend also to be based on normative white ideals,
the classic example being the middle-class household of The Cosby Show;
Mercer points out that there is 'nothing black' about the Huxtable's lifestyle
(1989:6).

Fusco (1988) refers to
such 'white liberal' attempts as 'Fantasies of Oppositionality'; anti-racist
media is constructed in such a way as to allow a white audience to displace the
guilt of their racist history. Wings of Desire (1988) is criticised by
bell hooks as 'another in a series where post-modern white culture looks at itself
somewhat critically, revising here and there, then falling in love with itself
all over again' (1991:165). The film tells the story of two white angels rejecting
the genocidal holocaust; hooks stresses the presumption that the angels are white
and believes that the film is merely an attempt to present white culture in a
new light (ibid:166). Such films can be used by white audiences to 'pretend' they
are identifying with anti-racist positions but still feel no need for personal
active opposition. Ferguson identifies a similar 'guilt-removal' process in his
analysis of Schindler's List. The narrative offers both the 'good' and
'bad' German (Liam Neeson's Oskar Schindler and Ralph Fiennes' Amon Goeth, respectively);
this 'could be seen as a way of absolving others linked with the oppressive group…
("I am white but I'm not like him")' (Ferguson, 1998:125). Ferguson also notes
the tendency for white characters to be turned into heros; Schindler is presented
as the 'James Stewart of the Holocaust' (ibid:121). In contrast, the Jews are
depicted as pathetic and helpless (ibid:122), perpetuating the idea of Aryan/
white superiority.

Even within the blaxploitation
genre, white members of society maintain a sense of intellectual and moral superiority.
These films are veiled with 'black cool' but traces of the old 'primitive' stereotypes
have been reworked: 'blacks are still the most frightening, cunning and glamorous
crooks… the sexually available "slave girl" is alive and kicking' (Hall, 1995:22).
Robinson examines the work of blaxploitation actress Pam
Grier finding that often 'Grier wore… revealing attire; toted pistols, revolvers
and shotguns; kickboxed, mutilated and "smoked" her opponents…' (1998:7). Hollywood
responded to black liberalism by depicting the apparent empowerment of blacks,
while still denotating an essence of white moral superiority.

It appears that Gramsci's
theory of hegemony not only helps us to understand the motivations behind racist
images in the media, but it is also part of a crucial process of demonstrating
the inadequacy of white 'liberal' attempts at reform. In spite of well-meant ventures
to present racial minorities favourably, white hegemony over the means of media
production means that television and cinema continue to subjugate these social
groups.